This week I thought we could take a brief look at what skills are needed to be an efficient Man Manager and get the best out of your sales team.
Good Man Management requires a completely different set of skills and character traits than just being a good sales person. I’ve seen on countless occasions where a company has given the top sales person a management position through natural internal promotion, only to find they failed in their new position and eventually returned back to the sales floor because they could make more money as a sales rep.
The top sales people don’t necessarily always make the best managers. The top sales reps tend to be self centred, cold calculators who are full of their own self importance and only interested in their next commission cheque.
Those characteristics are great if you just want to be a successful sales rep for the rest of your sales career.
When you move into management you need a completely different set of skills. Of course it helps to have been fairly good as a sales rep before you move into management so you can pass on your selling skills to your new reps, but what’s more important is to know how to manage.
So what makes a good Man Manager?
Good Man Management means being a good leader. To lead means to go in front and show the way.
A favourite saying of mine is the one that goes: If a man is starving and you give him a fish, he will eat for one day. But if you take that same starving man and teach him how to fish, he will be able to feed himself and his family for the rest of his life.
Good Man Management is exactly that. Teach your sales team how to sell and they will feed themselves, their families and you for the rest of their lives.
Educate and Motivate daily, not just when sales are slipping. (Prevention is better than cure.)
Never blame the person, Blame the action and outcome. (People can be taught good habits and actions can be changed thus producing the desired outcome. If a person is not performing is it their fault, or is it yours for not teaching them properly?)
Never ask anyone to do anything you’re not prepared to do yourself. (Respect is something you have to earn. It doesn’t come automatically with the title.)
If you have to pull someone to one side make sure you do just that and pull them to one side. Never make an example of them in front of the rest of the sales team and always find something to praise them about straight after the reprimand. Everybody performs better with a pat on the back and some praise.
And lastly, remember that you were new once. The only reason you’re now where you are is that someone took the time to manage you properly when you first started your sales career.
If you there’s a particular sales subject that you would like me to cover in future articles, please leave me a comment below or drop me an e-mail and I will answer them in the forth coming weeks.
See you next week.
What Makes a Good Man Manager?
Opening Statements And Introductions That Create Immediate Interest
Last week in our “Tips for Telesales” we looked at the importance of pre-call planning, knowing what you want to achieve with your call and setting out your objectives to achieve these goals with a good solid game plan and script to work from.
This week I want us to look at your opening statements and some introductions that will create immediate interest and make the listener want to hear more, rather than start the getting-rid-of-you process.
Remember when you are cold calling clients on the phone, it's very easy for them to just say “No thanks, I’m not interested” and hang up!
This is even more likely when they suddenly realise you’re calling regarding selling their Timeshare, or offering yet another R.C.I. bonus week.
So when you work in the Telemarketing Department for a Timeshare Company you really have to grab the listener’s interest in the first five seconds of your call or you will lose them every time. Don’t use the old corny positive tie-downs in your opening statements like: “If I could show you how to………….. You would wouldn’t you?” They will have heard that over and over again and probably have fell for it a couple of times already. It’s a sure fire way of getting them to think your just another one of the million Timeshare Resale Companies out there looking for yet another registration fee and hang up on you.
Also when cold calling in telesales don’t start with “I was just calling people in your area” People don’t like being just part of a telemarketing database that you’ve compiled out of a telephone directory in their area. They want to feel special and you need to make them think it is a personal call just for them.
It is always good to open with a question that will make them think before they answer. And remember to shut up and let them answer; don’t be tempted to carry on talking just to fill in the empty space. The silence will be worse for them and they could just be thinking about the answer to your question which is what you wanted to achieve in the first place.
Here are a couple of examples of good opening statements you could try after you’ve introduced yourself:
“I’m just updating your details and I need to know if you’ve sold your Timeshare yet?”
“I called a few months ago but it wasn’t convenient for you to take advantage of our offer at the time and I was wondering if your circumstances had changed?”
“You asked me to call you back regarding our…………”
Those opening statements are designed to get the client curious enough to ask you more questions giving you the opportunity to get down to the real reason of your call.
You will also notice that those opening statements give the impression that you’ve spoken before and that this call is just a follow up call and not a cold call. People are always willing to listen to someone they’ve spoken to before.
Now put yourself in your clients’ shoes and think what opening statements would make you curious enough to listen to the caller and ask for more information, then adapt them into your own telesales pitch and try them out on your next call.
Next week I’m going to cover Man Management and how to get the best out of your sales team. If you there’s a particular subject that you would like me to cover in the forth coming weeks, please fell free to leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail.
See you next week.
Tips For Telesales – Pre-Call Planning
I mentioned last week in the introduction to this section that a pleasant voice and a good telephone manner will help enormously in your successful telesales career, but there are telephone skills that can be learned and put into practise to improve your telephone closing percentages.
As this section unfolds and begins to grow we will look at the art of closing over the phone step by step.
This week in the first part of our Tips for Telesales series I want to look at Pre-Call Planning.
Some of us have been born with a natural ability to ad-lib or think on our feet and some of the best closers in the world are really just actors playing out their role. But I guarantee you one thing. Actors or closers, they all started with a script that was pre-planned and they rehearsed it over and over again until they didn’t need it written down any more and could go from the opening scene to the final curtain with their eyes closed.
In face to face sales you can get away without knowing your script word for word by also using your visual props to keep you clients interested.
In telesales you don’t have any visual props unless you have used a brochure mail shot before your call. That is why it is so important to have a pre-call plan and know exactly what the reaction of your clients will be when they answer the phone and you introduce yourself.
You have to first decide what your objective is. What do you want your client to do as a direct result of your call? What are you trying to achieve from your call? Will it take one call, two calls or maybe more?
Are you going to need a second call to talk to the decision maker or get the final answer?
If that’s the case you need to build into your first call plan, some sort of urgency or special offer that will make sure that they talk to their partner that night, and give you a definite answer the following night when you call them back.
Once you have worked out what you want the end result to be, you can start to work out how you are going to get there and you’ll be able to prepare your questions accordingly.
Remember telesales isn’t all about you doing the talking. Just as in all sales situations your questions should be designed to get the client to do the talking. People will always believe their own statements and ideas more than yours
Your primary objective should be to get the person on the other end of the phone not to hang up in the first five minutes, so your opening line should be based around an open ended question that will make your client think about something before they respond. You have to get their attention straight away and gently continue down the path you have already planned to finally get your client to take action.
So to re-cap on your pre-call plan:
Work out what you want to achieve with your call and prepare a plan to achieve it.
Open with a question that causes your client to think before they answer and gets them involved straight away.
And if you’re new to telesales, set your self mini objectives like for example: “I’ll get everyone to at least agree to a second call”. That way you won’t become too disillusioned in the early stages. Telesales is not easy. If it was everybody would do it wouldn’t they? It takes a special type of person to be able to get someone to take action over the phone by only using your voice and some carefully planned words. So feel good about yourself and be proud to be special. Many people before you have tried and failed.
See you next week.
Tips for Telesales - Introduction
It was pointed out to me the other day by my good friend Dean (“Hi Dean”) that my sales training section only deals with face to face sales, so as I promised last week I’m starting a section dedicated to telesales and improving your telephone closing skills.
When you’re selling Timeshare face to face on a working resort you have quite a few advantages over someone who works in the Timeshare Telemarketing department.
Firstly your client has been invited into the resort. They should have a brief idea that they are going to attend a Timeshare sales presentation. Or at least know that you will be showing them around the resort and the clients will have agreed to give you at least an hour of their time in return for some sort of gift or free lunch.
They are also on holiday and normally quite relaxed with nothing really special to do other than enjoy themselves.
Telesales is completely different.
You’re going in completely cold.
You’re invading your client’s privacy.
Unless you deal business to business you are entering their homes uninvited.
You have no way of telling if it’s a good time to call or not until you call and they will always be too busy or have something more important to do than listen to you.
They will have been bombarded by telesales people on a daily basis trying to sell them the latest money saving telephone plan. Or the new gas or electric company that promises to save them thousands on they’re future utility bills and the bank is always trying to sell them more finance. I even had a call the other day from my electric company offering me life insurance!
The poor woman failed immediately because she had called my wife’s mobile which is the number we had put on the electric contract, and then insisted on talking to the person on the title of the contract which is me. She would not discuss the purpose of the call with my wife.
Had she taken the time to ask a few questions first she would have found out that my wife’s number was on the contract because she deals with all the household finances, including our life insurance policies.
When my wife finally handed the phone to me in despair after trying to explain that the poor woman was better off talking to her, I promptly told her she was talking to the wrong person and cut her off!
The moral to this story is: It is very easy to say “no thanks” and hang up when someone calls you on the phone so your opening line and introduction in the first few seconds is crucial in telesales.
It goes without saying that a pleasant voice and a good phone manner will help enormously in your telesales career, but there are other skills that can be learned and put into practise to improve your telephone closing percentages.
We’ll be looking deeper at those telephone skills over the next few weeks in my new section “Tips for Telesales”
So see you next week for the first part of “Tips for Telesales” that will be dedicated to opening lines and introductions that will make sure they don’t hang up on you.
